


Consort

by dovahfiin



Category: Outlander Series - Diana Gabaldon
Genre: Blow Jobs, Dubious Consent, Feeding, Feeding Kink, Gay Sex, I am terrible, Injury, M/M, Male Slash, Older Man/Younger Man, Rape/Non-con Elements, This Is STUPID, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things, Trash fire, What even is wrong with me, this is the worst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-28
Updated: 2017-11-29
Packaged: 2019-02-07 19:44:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12848220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dovahfiin/pseuds/dovahfiin
Summary: The enigmatic Duke of Sandringham is revealed to be much more than a socially graceless relic.UNDERGOING A TIRE FIRE EDIT





	1. Discovery

**Author's Note:**

> If you've not begun watching Outlander, this series of one-shots unveils season spoilers for seasons one through three.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shortly before going to Paris, the Duke of Sandringham visits a convalescing Captain Randall. Lessons are imparted, but not absorbed.

"Captain Jonathan Wolverton Randall Esquire. Look at me."

He does, because the laudanum is a fickle mistress. He feels no pain, not really, but the swirls of his vision make it impossible to meet the Duke's disappointed gaze.

"Why are you here?"

"What sort of patron would I be if I did not at least feign interest in your well-being?"

When he wasn't putting up a ridiculous front to appear aloof and ineffectual, the Duke's voice was a gravely, swallowed baritone. Randall shivered.

"How you have grown to displease me, Jonathan. Swept from the pedestal I put you on by - what were they - ah, cattle. Really, Captain, it does nothing to improve your most precarious position in my graces."

"I'm sorry."

"'Sorry' implies that you regret raping and beating our dear Jamie. I know that you are unable to feel remorse, so I wonder how you can afford to be apologetic without moral bankruptcy."

Randall can't speak to that. He was seen in that dank dungeon on more than one occasion throughout the evening, and the Duke could only shield him from consequence so many times. It appeared he had been run aground in that regard.

"You are an animal, it's true. I've known this since we met, but I thought, and wrongly so, that I could overcome the flaws of your character. This darkness in you is distracting."

"I am the sum of my experiences. I hate Scotland. I hate _you_."

"Ah, Captain. Come now - surely you know that, once spoken, those words cannot be taken back." Slowly, the Duke rose from his position across the room. Randall watched the man, who could have perhaps been attractive in his younger years, remove his wig. The snow white hair underneath elicits a second, more noticeable shiver.

"We are men of unequal means, and you have bitten the hand which has fed your darkness more times than I can abide."

He wasn't the clumsy Duke of Sandringham anymore - he was Clarence Marylebone now, speaking of debts owed and honor forgotten. Perhaps he had been a handsome man in his youth; the way the light fell on his silk-clad shoulders made Randall consider that he could have even been strong. He removed his coat, tossing it over the back of the well-appointed chair he'd been sitting in. As he unbuttoned his cuffs, Randall looked on helplessly.

"What are you doing?"

The lace and shirt fell to the floor. Marylebone stood before him in nothing but breeches, his upper body exposed, pale, its adipose almost physically sickening after feeling the hardness of Fraser's body beside him.

"You really don't understand, you know, how things work in war. For a man who has spent so much time soothing the savages of the Highlands, you have quickly forgotten that you are owned just as they are." He slips beneath the sheets, pressing his soft body against Randall, throwing one leg over his.

"You will remember" he whispers "to whom you belong. To whom your career, such as it is" - he begins to move, painfully slow, and his growing hardness is evident of what sort of lesson Randall will soon learn " _belongs_."

Randall lies there, stiff as Marylebone's cock against his hip, and vacates his mind of all thoughts. He wants to reach out and crush the old fool's windpipe; he wants to twist his neck, wants to bite and claw and scratch. He is too injured to force his body to comply with anything other than resigned stillness. Tears sting the corners of his eyes.

"Is this what you did with Jamie Fraser? Did you trace a line down his beaten backside with your aching cock, Jonathan?" A particularly ghastly bruise on his hip meets the hardened length of the Duke's swollen penis. He sucks in a breath at the sudden pain.

"My _apologies_ , Captain. You have been through so much, but trust me in that I only wish to bring you comfort." He spits the last two syllables like poison, some of his own saliva mingling with the sweat and involuntary tears streaking down Randall's face.

"Poor, dear, misguided Captain Randall. My wayward boy." He rolls on top of him, allowing his not inconsiderable weight to ensure that the man beneath him doesn't move. "Let me soothe the rumblings of your conscience." He catches a nipple in between his teeth, and bites. A gasp escapes Randall's mouth before he can think better of it.

When Marylebone begins a rough, rolling rut, it's all Randall can do to remain quiet. The rage begins to build in him, flowing out from the center of his chest to fill each corner of him like an upended bottle of ink. The older man begins to sweat, his eyes closed while he enjoys the sensation of his hardness bumping along the ridges of Randall's stomach.

"I've tarried too long in administrative life. I fear I'm not the perfect specimen of fitness that you are, my dear boy."

"You're disgusting."

Marylebone laughs. "And what does that make you? I am on the outside what you are in your soul. We are bothers", he whispers.

Without warning, the Duke flips him onto his side. The pain is blinding and white hot, but he still does not cry out. There is a rustle of sheets and clothing as the Duke readjusts his position, no doubt lining himself up with Randall's now fully exposed entrance. The Captain winces when he realizes that, in spite of himself, he too is hard.

"Is this how it happened? Did you subjugate and tame that wild Highland will to make him your consort?" There is no ceremony or preparation; Marylebone rips inside of him, the remarkable girth of his penis tearing into Randall with abandon.

He can feel Marylebone's belly pressing into his back, his hot breath lingering in the shell of his ear. He shuts his eyes, lets the growling man behind him take his pleasure. It is only fair.

"A man with proclivities toward barbarism should be shown no tenderness. You wouldn't know what to do with it, anyway; but this" he shoves himself so deeply and so quickly into Randall's ass that the Captain's teeth clack "you know well. This I can give you, my impossible devil." He heaves himself over Randall's form, coming face to face with his beneficiary. They lock eyes, only for a moment, and Marylebone sinks until he is eye-level with Jonathan Randall's long, slim penis.

"What a pretty picture." The British captain bites his lip so hard it draws blood as the Duke begins truculent and seductive ministrations. His silence is his only weapon; any indication that he's enjoying this will be punished with more, and he doesn't yet know if he enjoys it. Clarence is sloppy, an obviously unpracticed lover but he makes up for in enthusiasm what he lacks in intuiting what Randall wants.

What Randall _wants_ is the Duke of Sandringham's head, and God above does he hate himself for how close he is to losing control. "This exercise is not meant to reward you, Captain." He stops sucking, roughly moving back over to his previous position. "There is no affection in this. There is no honor. Is this how you ravaged James Fraser? Is this how you asserted your delicious depravity? We are so very much alike, darling boy."

When the Duke spends himself, he moans so languorously it makes the contents of Randall's stomach threaten to expel themselves. He is suddenly aware of his own bobbing member, throbbing and swollen and scarlet with desire he can't discern - but the need remains. That nagging, wretched need.

"I am quite famished, Captain. I trust you can take care of the remains of our happy pair." He plants a line of purposefully sloppy kisses along Randall's shoulder, nodding to his aching sex. "You never grasped the beauty of self-reliance. I suppose that's why you have me."

He watches the Duke dress, smoothing out the bunched wrinkles of his shirt with all the graces of the fumbling idiot he expertly portrays himself to be. He is the Duke once more. Clarence Marylebone's seed isn't even dry inside of him.

"When you are quite finished feeling sorry for yourself, join me in Paris. I leave on the morrow; and _Alex_ did indeed graciously accept my offer of employment. I believe a family reunion would go a long way in expediting your recovery, my dear boy."

And then he's gone. Randall doesn't bother calling the nurse. He falls asleep in Sandringham's wetness, the laudanum having worn off but the imprint of the Duke lingering on his skin like the sheen from a fresh bath. It doesn't go away even when his boots meet French soil. It doesn't go away no matter how many times he bathes, and it escapes his notice that he doesn't give himself to rich lathers of soap anymore.


	2. Rhapsody

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Duke of Sandringham is an enigma, but Clarence Marylebone's motivations are crystal clear.
> 
> A discussion and forced perspective in Paris.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Omfg why am I doing this again.
> 
> This 'ship should be illegal.

He limps.

Every day, it reminds him of Jamie Fraser. Every day, he is reminded of the Duke's half-hearted dalliance with sadistic tendencies, and there's no doubt that Sandringham doesn't possess the soullessness of his beneficiary. Their coupling was clumsy, his attempt at pointing out their differences and indiscretions a cloying and trite attempt that hadn't quite accomplished its purpose.

But he still limped. And he still felt the outline of Marylebone's cock on his hip, and he wasn't certain that he wanted to will that sensation away just yet.

Perhaps there's lesson enough in that.

Now he's in Paris, and has been for a fortnight. Scotland and its unforgiving terrain and its unforgiving people are gone, for the time being. He's representing the interests of the Crown, but his confrontation with the Duke in England has seen to it that he won't be taken seriously even by his patron. Had he finally gone too far at Fort William? Did it matter?

His invitation to Versailles hadn't yet been extended, but he knew that when he was summoned, it would be at the Duke's behest. He'd be made an example of, but that had happened before to a lesser extent when the Duke was more amenable to indulging his erstwhile Captain.

Captain Randall didn't mind that possession, but he didn't welcome it either. Perhaps Paris would bring that dichotomy into focus.

Four weeks found him summoned by the Duke, who had kept a respectable distance and allowed Randall the ability to recover enough that his court decorum wouldn't suffer from the limp or the searing outline of Sandringham's surprisingly large cock. He came when called, and Louis XV had actually laughed at him. _On your knees_ , he'd said, and Randall had been too afraid to cross a man who found greater pleasure in death than even he. The courtiers had knowingly smirked. The King found the Captain amusing, his uniform a glaring reminder of how very far away from home he was. The whole exchange was about power, and where Randall would normally thrive against a challenge, he wasn't fool enough to attempt the loftiness of a monarch.

"Do not mock my support with similar displays of buffoonery, Captain. Remember how thin the ice truly is beneath those lovely polished boots."

"My apologies. I'm not used to formality."

Sandringham giggles darkly. "Oh, Jonathan. One of the reasons you've endeared yourself to me; you are a beast. Beasts don't bow to kings. How foolish of me to uphold such expectation when you can scarcely be entrusted with your own personal code of conduct."

"Are you going to continually hold me to account for doing my job?"

"Better men than you have hidden behind the demands of their station as ample reason to commit atrocities; you are not the first. However, I would hate to see our arrangement severed were you to mangle the understanding we share."

Randall considers this. If ruining James Fraser hadn't done it, what might Sandringham consider going too far?

"You may not realize this, but it is in the interest of business that I am here. There are no political motivations for coming to Versailles; His Majesty simply wanted to discuss trade. I cannot manage such affairs from my estate in Scotland, nor England for that matter."

"And?"

They're walking in the sunken gardens on the grounds of the palace, and it's Spring. It would be almost pleasant if Randall were with anyone else. Sandringham seems to be in good spirits, although his usual affect is once again gone and replaced with a calculating coolness Randall can scarce describe. Is this who he really is? Why does he show this side of him only to Randall?

"And, dear boy, it is in the interests of maintaining distance from the Crown. Suspicion of my involvement in the Jacobite rebellion have been brought to light, I'm afraid."

Captain Randall stops. Time itself seems to stop. Sandringham, pretending he didn't realize the gravity of what he'd just said, continues to amble along. "Do keep up, Captain. Surely your injuries aren't so serious as to rob you of your usual agility."

"I am simply surprised. You've never shown anything other than loyalty to the Crown."

"I have never shown anything to the Crown. You don't pay _attention, mon capitaine_ , and that pains me endlessly. Your prospects in Scotland would be greatly improved if you practiced a sharpened awareness of the world around you. Attention paid to me, and yourself." He reaches up to move a wisp of chestnut brown hair from Randall's face; the Captain doesn't fight it, wouldn't refuse what seemed on the outside like a kindness paid from a father to a son. There is so much more in the feather-light touch of his fingertips - this, Randall realizes, is masked from the eye of any old passerby. This is not a display of authority like what Louis XV had done; this is something special.

"I cannot show you your flaws using means other than that which you prefer. I apologize that I am not a learned practitioner of your menacing arts, my friend." They resume walking, Randall's limp slightly more pronounced although he doesn't entirely know why.

"Tell me more about the Jacobite rumor."

"Firstly, it isn't a rumor."

Randall's blood boils. "How?"

"As you know, I have never married and the reasons for that conscious choice are hopefully apparent to you now. It is the reason I was dispatched to Scotland; His Majesty could not overlook a cousin whose preferences would draw the honor of the royal house into question."

Captain Randall's eyes widen, their dark irises contracting. "What in God's name - do you mean to tell me, sir, that you are not only a bloody Jacobite sympathizer, but that you are so close to the King as to taste him?"

They sit on a bench next to a panoply of hostas. Randall cannot peel his eyes away from Sandringham's resigned features.

"It is of course far more complex than you would ever understand. I was given Sandringham out of the need to keep things quiet; a young courier, five years ago. Perhaps too young. I never have been, nor will I ever be I realize now, a man of bombast and great strength. Not like you, Captain. Not like you at all."

Randall waits. More and more, he sees the Duke for what he is; beyond that, his mind teases him with the reason behind why Sandringham has retained his services throughout the innumerable expressions of evil he had put forth. Especially recently. The guilt suddenly pressing into his stomach is a most unwelcome and surprising intruder.

"When you came to me, the tousle with the courier had been the final straw - but your failures amounted to so much more than the unblemished skin of a young man beneath me. You were a magnificent scapegoat, my dearest boy, and everything I had never been able to reach. The perfect emissary for my plans to break away from king and country. You are the piece of meat to throw in front of a hungry pack of wolves, and to that end you have succeeded beautifully."

"I'm not sure I understand." Randall is stewing, knowing he's living up to the Duke's correct assessment of his inability to grasp the bigger picture. "I came to you of my own volition. There was never a time I didn't hold the ability to change the course of my life, but here you sit telling me that was an illusion."

"Where do you think your commission came from? Or the immunity you have since enjoyed, for that matter. I am the father of your pardons and privilege, Captain. As I have never and will never sire a child of my own, as I have never traversed the misty moors of a battlefield, together we have cultivated the progeny of my deepest and most private desire."

"What" Randall sighs. "Are you talking about?"

The Duke's voice dropped again, not a whisper but not quite full voice; and stripped of the contrived tenor he used with anyone else. "My motivations are solely personal. I have no desire to quarrel with the king, I have no allegiance to a man who is disgusted by me. I am simply bemused by your conflicts, and with my means I would see that they continue. You deserve it, Captain Jonathan Randall. You deserve to be the martyr of this land and of this cause. I am bored, old, fat and tired. You are the most marvelous, wondrous thing to me." His hand, its plump fingers on Randall's thigh, were not brushed away. When he squeezed the muscle underneath his hand, Randall let him.

"You are what I will never be. Our last encounter proved that. I am haunted by the specter of a man I can scarcely breathe to desire - you are the ghost, Jonathan, cloaked in sinew and muscle and rage. Let me tame you, time and again, until you fall. It will be your only comfort in this life. So shall your suffering be mine. I need you, Captain."

Everything, their first encounter, the hand Sandringham had extended, flooded back to Randall in a fit of recognizance. This man knew him better than any who had come before, and with the exception of James Fraser, any who would come after. His control was total, and he barely had but to lift a finger to wield the unseen power he possessed - the power of regret, of loneliness, of isolation. For arguably the first time in his life, Jonathan Wolverton Randall experienced the bitterness of pity.

"I serve at the pleasure of my patron if it means that I am allowed to continue my present course."

"And you are, but go forth cautiously. The Jacobites are far from where the must be to secure a major victory, but I suspect that their cause will gain traction at a disturbing rate. I fully intend on losing in this, but I won't fade into the faceless background of history. One more mistake from you would tear me away from the last pleasure I have found and held. Do not disappoint me again, Captain."

He was the punchline of a joke. Perhaps he'd always known this, but more than that, Sandringham was grasping a mirror to hold it to his Captain's face. His reflection was not surprising, but it was unavoidably jarring. The Duke's hand remained grasping, gently massaging against Randall's clothed thigh. For his part, the Duke was staring at him with the steepled brow of a man deep in thought, perhaps also in sadness. The buttons of his waistcoat puckered around a protruding midsection; his wig, normally long and curled, had been traded for a shorter white variant - to match the brilliant shock of hair underneath. His embroidered breeches were only slightly too tight, but his legs were strong and sturdy. He was a solid man, the Duke; perhaps not handsome or gallant, but he knew that. He knew who he was - could Randall say the same of himself?

"Jon." He breathed the name, his hushed baritone grasping the openness of its sole vowel. "Jon, let me. I hated lording my position over you. I am not given to cruelty. Let me be the only source of light. Let the Highlanders dance their reels thrice as wild as us. Are we not more cultured men?"

It was shocking. The begging alone was enough to scramble his thoughts so that he couldn't make sense of the proposition placed at his feet. The Duke was a Jacobite, but hadn't he known? His interest in Jamie was more than just the admiration an old man can sometimes have for a younger one; he wanted them to _win_ , because he too was an outlander; a nomad among his peers. And no one would believe Randall if he brought that fact to light. His silence was ensured by his servitude, and his affection was won by humble adoration.

"I will not divulge what you have said. To anyone. Continue to support me, and my silence will continue."

"Very, very good." One more hearty squeeze saw the Duke's hands retreating, rubbing circles over his knees. Randall rose first, extending a hand to the Duke from below. Sandringham takes his hand, and they continue to walk. Out of the corner of his eye, the Captain detects a rather remarkable bulge pressing against the black fabric of the older man's breeches.

He doesn't think about what he's doing when he drags an indignant Duke into the wilds on the edge of the palace grounds. He doesn't want to address the lathe of his tongue against a smooth belly fed by a lifetime of security and excess; he sucks at the line where the Duke's stomach folds, moaning theatrically but meaning it, damn him, as he feels the force of the man's dick scrape the underside of his chin while he takes mouthfuls of all the man's sins. Sandringham's hands are in Randall's hair, untying the lace and letting it fall around his shoulders.

Putting all of his talents on display so close to Versailles was a risk that caused his heart to skip and flutter. Anyone could happen by. Anyone could see the decadent roll of the Duke's eyes as Randall dragged his thumb down the man's perineum, eliciting a sharp intake of breath and a growl of pure want. There is a depravity in Paris, but this is a bridge too far - and both men know, and both men do not care.

Randall teases the Duke's awakening penis from the outside, rolling his tongue and tracing the outline of the desperately entrapped sex. It's a slow process, dragging the breeches down the Duke's hips and over the mountainous thickness of his thighs. It's laborious to fit himself under that belly to suck, greedily, like one of those damnable Scottish bairns suckling at his mother's breast. The Duke's weight presses against him, traps him. Randall groans again, licking and nipping a line from a gaping belly button, over the cliff of a stomach for once not sucked in, and down, down, down. The Duke cries out when the chill air meets his cockhead, and Randall smiles around his mouth outstretched to receive it.

There is no turning back. Randall realizes this as he continues, running his hands up and down the undulating length of the Duke's legs, cupping the globes of his ass in both hands and digging his nails into the pliant, doughy flesh. He's disgusted, he's hopelessly aroused, and he's determined to please his patron.

A shot of hot, milky semen floods over his tongue and slips down his throat while Sandringham bites his hand to keep himself from wailing. He seems to spend himself in an indefinite loop this time, thrusting wildly into Randall's mouth and emitting the only currency the two men truly understand. It is payment, and it is comfort. It is security. Randall lets it be those things, lets himself sink into the knowledge that only one man knows the depths of what drives him, what keeps him in the black depths.

When it's over, the Duke says nothing. He dresses himself, turns away to let Randall compose his own appearance but insists on turning around to watch the younger man tie his hair back. The Captain flexes on purpose; he smirks when the Duke's chest seizes.

"You are an unrivaled terror, sir."

When Randall grabs him and slams his lips against his, forcing the Duke's mouth open with a practiced thumb, the taste of his tongue is wine and excess. Randall smiles against it while the Duke struggles against the younger man's strength; he smiles when he tastes iron between them, gently licking away the blood he's drawn from the shorter man's lip.

"Your terror, my Lord."


	3. Eminence

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Captain Randall Christmases with the Duke at Bellhurst before the Battle of Culloden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In January 1746, Mary Hawkins goes to Bellhurst to stay with her godfather, the Duke of Sandringham. I'm going to take some liberties with headcanon and place her arrival after Christmas, with Randall arriving on Christmas Eve.

Death, Captain Randall realized as a restless mare trod along muddy uneven ground toward Bellhurst, was a likely prospect. His body had betrayed him in both recoveries; first from Fort William, then the duel in Paris. Both times, Jamie had emerged the victor. He had no reason to believe that whatever tousle with the Jacobites was coming would end differently.

He wore a jagged scar on his manhood as a reminder, and the phantom pains caused him to sit forward on his horse. It was more of a dull throb now when it did actually physically hurt him, but it was enough. A medal he can't wear on his chest, but which has served as a badge of office all the same. He wonders if the Duke will admonish him; there's no doubt in his mind that he'd heard about what happened, but that he had been called to Bellhurst rather than a nearby garrison was promising.

Randall ignored the stinging stir in his groin. That was another condemnation entirely.

A light snow had begun to fall, creating a surreal silence in which he lost himself for the remainder of his journey. Night had long since fallen, and the roads were clear. His mind wandered to Versailles; he hadn't crossed paths with the Duke after their encounter in the gardens, but it was not at all uncommon for his patron to go long stretches of time without contacting him. Randall had been recalled to England once again to recover, but his time there was short compared to the months long convalescence during which he and the Duke had initially come together. Whatever the case, as the Jacobite rebellion was now becoming an infuriating reality, Captain Randall was granted Christmas leave before he was to report to the British camp three miles from Culloden.

And the Duke knew this, certainly, because his summons had come from the estate two days after his new orders were issued. And the Duke knew, as Randall did, that the Captain would welcome death if it came to him.

As he was lead through the estate's vast halls by Sandringham's valet, Albert, he hoped that the man would dispense with the usual verbal parlays for which he is known. He hoped that once and for all, he might be authentic in his personhood; he found himself wanting the Duke to see him.

He was lead into the private dwelling, much like a separate apartment within the manor, where Marylebone was once again missing his wig; his soft, effeminate hands poised over a plate of pork and mustard, dressed in a rich burgundy evening robe, white shirt open at the chest to reveal sparse but coarse brown-and-gray flecked hair.

"My prodigal son. While I am always pleased to see you, I fear you have arrived during my most unaffected time of the day. Please, do sit."

Randall doesn't move at first. The combination of the affability and his manner of dress is not off-putting; Randall's own uniform is far from standard - but the resonance in the Duke's voice made him keen. The stark landscape of Scotland in winter was foreboding and hopelessly damp; this voice was like Westminster bells by comparison. He sank into a chair opposite his benefactor, holding the line of his back as straight as he could, features set in resigned anticipation.

"I see that you brought back a souvenir from Paris, Captain." The valet's eyebrows raise in confusion; the Duke narrows his ice blue eyes, waving his hand. "Albert, leave us."

Albert bows slowly, chancing a glance at the Captain who hasn't torn his gaze from a fixed spot on the plush Prussian rug on the floor. When the door closes behind him, Randall startles and meets the Duke's eyes once again. He cannot discern what the older man is thinking, and that is indeed a dangerous position.

The candles on the table gutter, the signet ring Marylebone wears on his pinkie catching the light. Randall pretends to ignore the room in which he finds himself; there is a rich, dark tartan he doesn't recognize adorning each of the windows, yards of fabric gathered by cream cords. He especially doesn't want to acknowledge the aubergine duvet atop a dark oak bed dancing in the periphery of his vision. He waits, and while he does it occurs to him that he has never seen the Duke's private chambers before now.

"Did you encounter much trouble during your stay in the Bastille?"

"Which one? The duel, or the suspicion of rape?"

The Duke groans. "I turn my back from you for less than one year, and you find all manner of uncouth pastimes. Really, Jonathan; was I not clear in my expectations?"

"Your expectations are rubbish. Jamie Fraser -"

"Is no longer your concern." Sandringham's voice had plummeted to its true timbre, leaving Randall speechless by the sudden change in behavior. "You will stop chasing that boy. Good God, man; it is almost as if you are jealous."

"Jealous? Of a yokel consigned to a life of struggle, railing against politics and beliefs he doesn't understand?" I am still a Captain in His Majesty's service. He is a lord of straw and a few misplaced bricks. Why would I be jealous of him?"

"Because he exists in a light which you can only dream of, my boy." The Duke rises, slowly walking toward the serving table where he heaps his plate with various cheeses, breads, and fruit. Randall turns around in his chair, watching the display as the Duke hums to himself, walking toward the roaring hearth and the great, luxuriant collection of animal furs laid in front of it. Marylebone sits, reclining on one elbow and pops a small piece of cheese into his mouth.

"You do not have to dwell on ceremony right now. Albert knows to leave us be, as do the other servants. My fussbudget of a goddaughter will not arrive for another several days; we are quite alone."

Captain Randall remains seated, looking on as the Duke continues to eat, almost suggestively wrapping his plump lips around each bite, never breaking eye contact with the British officer. A curious feeling washes over Randall, similar to what he experienced the day he took the Duke into his mouth and, to a greater extent, his own pool of darkness.

"Are your injuries especially prohibitive?"

"No. I was in England but for one week before I was discharged from hospital."

"Good. Put all memories of Jamie Fraser out of your mind; they will do you no good in this place."

"My Lord, what are you doing?"

He knows it's an impertinent question. It's obvious _what_ he's doing, but as usual his motivations are entirely unclear.

"There are guards posted to ensure that no one of ill-repute is seen on the grounds; specifically, they mean to ascertain whether or not I am truly a Jacobite. I am imprisoned in my own home, though I have discovered that perhaps this is not such a terrible fate."

"They will find the truth of you yet."

"Exactly, which is why I intend on enjoying the time I have left. Captain, are you not aware of the coming battles to secure Scotland's independence?" His intake of food has become astonishing; the firelight halos the Duke's face, making him seem almost Christlike as his jaw works and his throat contracts while he swallows. It is an utterly demented display made all the more alarming by Randall's awakening penis, in spite of its soreness. The combination of a growing heat within him, the sickening scene unfolding in front of the fire, and the pain growing in accordance with the blood stiffening his cock makes him heady and disassociated.

Randall removes his boots and great coat, letting them fall to the floor. The Duke clicks his tongue reproachfully. "I should have thought that you would have been looking forward to seeing me, your esteemed patron, in light of your recent misadventures. Ah - unless you are put out that I did not fly to your aid in England this time." His tongue teases the skin of a slice of pork before he pushes it with his middle finger into his mouth. Randall's eyes widen. "More lessons for you to learn, Jon. I cannot always bend to the whims of your darkness; but you are obliged to help me ease my own."

Randall's entire body is in turmoil. He's erect, he's soft, he's hopelessly attracted to the wanton hedonistic tendencies of his benefactor - it is so much like the masterpiece he had created against Jamie's skin - but he could not bring himself to taste its sweetness just yet. The Duke had begun to slow down, his chest heaving with the heavy breath of a man who has overindulged. Randall knows that labored inhalation all too well; he did it when he flogged Jamie half to death, and he did it when he fellated the Duke in Paris. The Captain watches himself reach out, grasping a large end of a piece of bread slathered in butter. He lifts it to the Duke's mouth, and slowly, so slowly it is almost as if time itself were standing still, the older man laps up the pad of butter before emitting small exclamations of ecstasy, biting into the doughy confection and sliding his mouth and its contents down the length of Randall's thumb.

"If and when Scotland falls" he coos "I should at least enjoy my last days here, and with my greatest accomplishment at my side."

Randall loses the last thread that had connected him to his grasp of reality. He had languished too long in injury and defeat, his last great work of art destroyed when Claire rescued her husband from Fort William. Since then, he had been unable to find a worthy pursuit since beyond the cloying interest of the Duke; a man who, before Paris, he had regarded as an effete antique whose only real purpose was to recommend his commissions while keeping his true proclivities carefully hidden. Never had Randall imagined that the Duke would willingly participate in and encourage those tastes; but here he was, stuffed like a Christmas goose and practically purring for more. They continued the ritual for quite some time, until two more hardy portions had passed the Duke's red, moist lips; his face had become flush with concentration and discomfort, his stomach painfully distended. Randall ran his hands over its expanse, occasionally bending to reward the mountainous man before him with enthusiastic pumps of his rail-straight dick, licking and sucking the underside of his belly. 

"Why not walk into oblivion together, my old friend? Do you not see" he grinds out through labored breaths "that we are nearing the end of all this?"

"The Scots -"

"Will continue to fight." The Duke rolls onto his back, moaning and running his hands up and down his girth. Randall watches, wanting to say more, wanting to defend the position of his countrymen and perhaps convince Marylebone that taking up the ideals of a doomed cause would only lead him to ruin.

Then again, he seemed to _embrace_ ruin, if his current state were any indication.

"Come here, Jonathan."

And he did. The Captain laid on his side, cradling the Duke's head in one hand and moving the snow white hair from his brow. He was detached from himself, from what he would consider his default behaviors; he considered such tenderness toward the man before him that it gave him pause, if only for a moment, as he watched the Duke watching him. The room smelled of mulled wine and sweat, and something else he couldn't name.

Their physical communion was achingly slow this time, and Randall surprised himself with his accommodation of Sandringham. When the man positioned himself to enter Randall, the sensation of a swollen stomach rubbing up against his ass was on its own enough to send him to oblivion. Images of what the future held danced along his cognitive periphery, mostly centered around Fraser but encompassing his brother and wind through wild heather. He actually closed his eyes, reaching behind him to take a fistful of Marylebone's thigh while he lazily rolled his hips into the younger man.

"Is this what you wanted when I came to you?"

There is silence at first, save for Clarence's labored breathing. He replies with a curt "No" and continues on, much to the bewilderment of Randall. "Then why?"

His rhythm became honed and focused, hard and merciless as he dragged Randall closer to him. The older man's skin was surprisingly soft, a horrific realization if only for the warmth it radiated throughout Randall's body. He started pushing himself into Marylebone's surprisingly powerful thrusts until the man said, quite plainly and devoid of difficulty, "I simply wanted you."

As with most things, the Duke's motives are muddy at best. When it came to Captain Jonathan 'Black Jack' Randall, they gained only nominal clarity; but clarity nonetheless.

They came just seconds apart from each other, Marylebone's abandon culminating into a brassy howl of what the Captain assumed was both pain and elation. His own completion marked a sort of benediction; a separation of what he was and what he wanted, and nothing - not even Jamie Fraser, not even the impending battles and perhaps his own death - could detract from a real and new beginning.

He doesn't love Clarence. At least, he doesn't think that he does; they are two men clinging to each other in uncertain times, perhaps Marylebone's fate is more enshrouded in mystery but it promises strife all the same.

Then again, no one else had visited him in hospital. No one else understood his bloodthirsty wonder, his infatuation with control, his affair with wielding power as a weapon. None but the Duke.

Marylebone, with a hesitant hand, reaches out and unties the silk holding back the Captain's hair. When it falls around his shoulders, the Duke narrows his eyes.

"I will not have a road-weary, soiled soldier in my bed. Rise, Captain."

He does as he is bidden, knowing that he is not given to being subservient but not willing to question how willingly his limbs move, seemingly of their own volition. Following Marylebone into a spacious bathroom, a lavish claw-foot tub on a stone dais in the center, he allows himself to be helped into the bath - freshly drawn, if the steaming water is any indication - while Marylebone sits, wrapping his robe about the globe of his midsection and grasps a sponge. They fall once again into a rhythm, a certain dance whose steps Randall cannot predict and one in which he is happy to allow Marylebone to lead. Soap scented with myrrh is lathered against his neck, down his shoulders and the slight bump of his triceps. Down, down, down goes Marylebone's hand until the inside of his thighs are being teased with the porous bathing implement, and Randall sits back to enjoy the newfound sensation that is _gentleness_.

"You are not so bad a man, Captain Randall."

"No" he moans, eyes opened to slits while the Duke rubs scented mineral oil into his shoulders. "No I am not."

"There is no honor in the subjugation we spoke of earlier. I know that one man cannot sway the tide, as it were, but perhaps there is victory enough in knowing that yours is the amended heart."

A plush towel is wrapped around the Captain's shoulders, the Duke dragging it almost lovingly down the taller man. He stands, sometimes meeting Marylebone's loaded gaze but also looking away, over the man's shoulder to a mirror whose reflection showed them both in the ambient light of several candles lit around the room. It would be vile to anyone else. He could count the dimples on the Duke's ass, could see his own pallid features done no favors even in the dim light. The candles gutter; the top of Marylebone's head comes just under Randall's chin. They remain unmoving there for quite some time; Randall realizes that it takes a moment for his breathing to slow and fall into the same pattern of _in out, in out_ as Marylebone's.

Somehow they had gathered their wits sufficiently to retire to the bed, aubergine duvet stuffed with goose feathers and sliding against Randall's skin as he lowered himself to lay next to his patron - who had miraculously recovered and seemed intent on cradling the Captain against his body, which complemented the rolling curves of the Duke's own. Where he was soft, Randall was hard; where he was laden with scars, the Duke's skin was unblemished. He ran his fingers over the jagged, pink gash - still healing, but no less beautiful - and Randall instinctively shrinks.

"Happy Christmas, Captain Randall."

He doesn't know what Sandringham's honorific is. He whispers the first thing that comes to mind.

"Happy Christmas, Your Eminence."


End file.
